1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus which prints an image on the basis of print job data.
2. Description of the Related Art
In image forming apparatuses which print an image, an image forming apparatus may individually have a circuit of a main body control portion which controls the print function of the main body of the image forming apparatus, and a circuit for processing of print job data called a printer controller or a PDL controller. In addition, the PDL controller is a control portion which processes a page description language.
Also, in parallel with the processing of the main body control portion which controls the respective drive systems for allowing the image forming apparatus to perform printing, a control portion for processing print job data converts the print job data into image data capable of being processed by the main body of the image forming apparatus. Through this parallel processing, it is possible to execute at high speed the creation of image data and printing operations of the image forming apparatus.
Additionally, a storage, such as a hard disk for storing data, may be connected to the image forming apparatus. Both the main body control portion and the control portion for processing print job data are related with the data stored in this storage. For example, the control portion for processing print job data stores the print job which is received from host PC to the storage connected to the image forming apparatus. Also, when the image forming apparatus performs printing, the control portion for controlling print job data reads out a print job from the storage, creates image data on the basis of the print job, and transfers the image data to the main body control portion.
For example, a configuration in which a storage is provided on the side of a PDL controller is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-104041. However, in the above conventional technique, when image data is transferred to a main body control portion from the PDL controller, data is transferred to the main body control portion after the PDL controller performs writing and read-out of data to/from a storage. Therefore, there is a problem in that the processing load on the PDL controller may increase. Additionally, for example, even when only the main body control portion of the main body of a printer has storage, and data is transferred to a PDL controller from the main body control portion, data is similarly transferred to the PDL controller after the main body control portion performs writing and read-out of data to/from a storage. Accordingly, there is a problem in that the processing load on the main body control portion may increase.